In this edition of our Weekend Box Office report, Universal’s ‘The Secret Life of Pets’ topped the charts earning $103M as expected. The animated comedy targeted the same family audience as Disney’s ‘Finding Dory’ and benefited from the fact that ‘Dory’ has already been out for several weeks. Speaking of ‘Dory’, that film slipped to third place, taking in an additional $20M, bringing its cumulative total to $422.5M, making it this year’s top earner.

‘The Legend of Tarzan’ continues to outpace expectations, taking in $20.6M in its second weekend. That’s a drop of just 46.5%, which is mighty impressive. It’s still unclear if the film will actually make back its huge $180M budget, but for whatever reason, this film is winning with audiences, despite terrible reviews.

‘Mike And Dave Need Wedding Dates’ starring Zac Efron, Anna Kendrick, Aubrey Plaza and Adam Devine needed audience members, as the R-rated comedy only took in $16.6M and doesn’t look to be impressing the few that saw it. This summer has been brutal for comedies in general so this one will likely fade quickly.

Rounding out the Top Five is ‘The Purge: Election Year’ which has already earned back its budget.

The Secret Life of Pets (Universal) – $103M

The Legend of Tarzan (Warner Brothers) – $20.6M

Finding Dory (Disney) – $20M

Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (20th Century Fox) – $16.6M

The Purge: Election Year (Universal) – $11.69M

Coming in well below these, at #8 is Disney’s ‘The BFG’ which is flopping hard. Maybe they should have considered opening it at a different time, so it wasn’t competing with their own ‘Finding Dory’. Also flopping is ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’. Looks like without Will Smith, audiences didn’t need another one of these films.

Next week will see the opening of perhaps the most controversial movie of the year, ‘Ghostbusters’. The movie has already been raked over the coals on social media and the trailer is the least liked trailer ever on Youtube. Can it possibly overcome such negative buzz and at least draw viewers out of curiosity? We’ll see!

Jax Motes

Jax's earliest memory is of watching 'Batman,' followed shortly by a memory of playing Batman & Robin with a friend, which entailed running outside in just their underwear and towels as capes. When adults told them they couldn't run around outside in their underwear, both boys promptly whipped theirs off and ran around in just capes.